Hate Is In the Eye of the Beholder

Hate.

I hate.

I hate me.

You hate.

You hate me.

Everybody hates.

Everybody hates me.

I hate everybody.

“Hate” is a powerful word; vicious, cruel and ugly. Hate is a cancer. Hate is also a construct of our human nature. But does it have to be so all consuming? Hate hurts people, often beyond repair. It destroys relationships, definitely beyond repair. It stagnates progress, so that any repair is compromised. Over the many years spent as a human on this cruel, hateful planet, I have witnessed and even participated in my share of hate.

Most of my hate is directed at the asshole in the mirror, but that’s another tale.

To hate requires effort. It means that we remain so invested in a thing, a person, or idea that we willingly feed it with thought, concern, reflection, retribution - whatever - to keep it festering and alive. To hate is to continue to give over our personal power to someone or something we deem despicable. To hate is exhausting.

Consider, if you will, the concept of indifference. How freeing would it be to simply not give that hated entity another second of our precious time? How liberating would it feel to expend the mental energy formerly reserved for hating on creativity or self improvement? How satisfying would it be to reclaim our power for our own purposes instead of expending it on the futility that is hate?

Indifference, you may ask. Not caring, one way or another. Not thinking, either good or bad. Not hating, but permanently retiring, putting to rest, and burying that which has eaten away at our minds, souls, and lives. Hell no, it’s not easy. But it is an option - an option that with any consideration and effort, positive effort, will allow us to move forward as a better person, a stronger person because we have restored the effort that we spent on hatred back to ourselves to spend on whatever our heart desires. Just imagine the satisfaction of crossing paths with an individual who was formerly hated, but since we have buried that hatred, we can honestly ask, “Oh, you still exist?”

But of course the choice remains; talk about hate, write about hate, live in hate, hate the hate, but ultimately be eaten alive by the cancerous, festering beast that leaves us alone, empty, and ...hated.